Стихи и эссе

     Say this city has ten million souls,
     Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
     Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

     Once we had a country and we thought it fair,

     Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
     We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

     In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,

     Every spring it blossoms anew:
     Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

     The consul banged the table and said,

     "If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
     But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

     Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;

     Asked me politely to return next year:
     But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

     Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;

     "If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
     He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

     Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;

     It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":
     O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.

     Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,

     Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
     But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.

     Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,

     Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
     Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

     Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;

     They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
     They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.

     Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,

     A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
     Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

     Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;

     Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
     Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.

March 1939

VOLTAIRE AT FERNEY